


The Introspective Types

by leslielol



Category: Justified
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 08:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3760759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslielol/pseuds/leslielol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raylan helps Tim set upon a new path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Introspective Types

**Author's Note:**

> Just a silly little thing that takes place shortly after the finale. Spoilers throughout.

It's a Saturday afternoon, there are cartoons playing on the television behind him, and a spread of Legos underfoot. Possibly a live frog, too, but Raylan chooses to pretend otherwise. Sunlight spills in from the open balcony door, and a breeze stirs the ocean air into his daughter's curls. 

He never saw this for himself. Not in his wildest dreams. 

Likewise, a phone call straight out of years past isn't something he's expecting, either. Raylan's visited some ghosts in the last two weeks, and a third gives him some sense of foreboding. 

“Hey,” is the only greeting Raylan hears. 

He replies in turn, “Hey.”

“What’s your address?”

Raylan gives it, hears the details relayed slowly to someone else. 

“And it ain’t like a bar or a bunker in the ground, knock twice on the stripper to get in?”

Raylan finds he's grinning. “No, there’s a door.”

“Fantastic. Okay.” 

Tim Gutterson ends the call. 

\- 

Raylan tells his daughter he has an old friend coming to visit, and maybe they should tidy up a little, huh? Willa insists on making her daddy's friend a spaceship instead. Raylan figures if the Lego pieces are being pieced together, at least there will be less to clean up. He leaves her to it.

Tim arrives maybe half an hour after his phone call. He's wearing the same hard-eyed stare Raylan best associates with him, but a t-shirt in lieu of a jacket. There's a new tattoo spilling out from one sleeve, and maybe his hair is a little longer. Raylan doesn't say anything either way, because he knows Tim's sizing him up, too. 

Tim opens his mouth to speak--a proper hello, an apology for dropping in unannounced, or maybe some dead panned line about bothering Raylan for a cup of sugar--it doesn't matter. He spots Willa and all sense leaves him. 

“Jesus Christ." 

“No, that’s Willa," Raylan corrects. Tim looks confounded enough by her presence that he thinks the explanation is genuinely earned.

Tim’s gaze follows her as she darts from one side of the apartment to the other. Tim doesn't know it, but she's taking his rocket ship for a test drive. Tim drawls, uncertain, “Oh, you still got her?” 

Raylan heaves a contemplative sigh, like he’s put that question to himself before. “Well I considered leaving her on a park bench, but I come to appreciate the company.” He’s shitting Tim, but notes that Tim is nodding along, like, _understandable._

“So?” Raylan prompts. "Not that I don't appreciate you dropping in with--"

"Duty free bourbon," Tim supplies while lifting the bottle he's got by the neck. It seems to be _all_ he's got as he stands, unencumbered, a far ways away from home.

"Duty free bourbon," Raylan grins. 

With his head ripped back at an angle--like he's so annoyed with some circumstance or another that it's not enough just to roll his eyes, he's got to get his whole head in on the action--Tim explains, “Airport lost my bag, won't send it to the hotel I booked ‘cause of 'security reasons.'”

Raylan doesn’t need to be told twice. “You got a firearm in your checked luggage?”

“It’s a wedding gift," Tim says. “And a relic. Some World War II piece, couldn’t fire so much as a Skittle, you put one down the barrel and turn the thing over.” Tim sounds like he’s given this explanation before, likely to airport staff and TSA officers. “It’s on a connecting flight, should be here this afternoon.” Tim waits a beat, adds, “I tried waiting at the airport, but they needed a residence. I got to sign for it.”

Raylan’s long been smiling at him. “You gonna keep talking around asking to hang out here a spell?”

Tim hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “I can wait outside.” 

He can see the life Raylan's got spread out on the floor of his place, the little girl dictating every aspect of it. Although he'd given it very little thought when he made the call and came over, Tim realizes now that he doesn't want to intrude. 

“Bullshit,” Raylan counters, his tone strangely bright and inviting. “We were just about to have lunch.”

"Ice cream!" Willa calls out from inside.

"Nutrients," Raylan counters. "First. Then ice cream."

“Outside,” Tim repeats, pointing down the hall, “It’s this way?”

He’s had his fair share of meals with Raylan--buffalo wings at a bar, whatever they picked up from a convenience store during an all-night stakeout, anything they could bill the office for--but sandwiches cut into triangles with a side of apple slices is a whole other level. 

"Be a man and say hello to my four year old.” 

Raylan introduces Tim as his friend from Kentucky. 

“He’s got another, _better_ friend, but he’s in prison,” Tim offers, and Raylan shoots him a tired look. Tim sticks out his hand for a professional handshake, to which Willa readily meets. 

She shows him both her dolls and legos, as well as a photo of her dog, Padawan. 

“He lives with Mommy but Daddy got him for me!” Willa explains brightly.

“Yeah, your daddy’s pretty slick.” 

Then, she shyly presents her handiwork with the spaceship. Tim compliments the craftsmanship and poses overly-specific inquiries that Willa handles with aplomb. Raylan eavesdrops while preparing lunch. 

He gets Willa situated with her meal, then gestures with the bottle of bourbon to gage Tim's interest. It’s early, but that’s never been a problem for either of them before. Tim is quick to shake his head, demurs, "Nope, that's for you."

Tim doesn't say so, but Raylan catches his meaning. He hands Tim a coke from the fridge.

To take a seat at the little bar top counter in Raylan’s kitchenette, Tim has to first empty his pockets of his wallet, phone, stolen packet of airplane peanuts, and reading material. 

“What’d’ya got there?” Raylan asks, nodding to the paperback. 

“The best Lexington International has to offer,” Tim answers. “It wasn’t bad.” 

He slides it across the counter, reminiscent of Raylan's parting gift four years ago. Granted, some book picked up on a whim between a rack of neck pillows with built-in headphones and top-shelf vodka doesn't carry the same weight as passing along a well-loved classic. Raylan accepts it, anyway. 

“Can we read it, Daddy?” Willa asks from the small dining table sat in a sunny patch under the kitchen window. She kicks out her legs into all the empty space under the table, fast like she's running. Not only is she eating an exquisite PB&J, but there's a strange man in her daddy's apartment. It's all very exciting. 

Raylan looks at the cover of the book, then Tim. 

“There a horse in this?” 

It's a Western, so, “Yeah.”

Raylan pitches his voice low, asks, “Does it die?” 

Tim thinks about the tragic gunning down of the hero's steed. “Its... spirit lives on.”

Raylan puts the book atop the microwave for safe keeping. 

"Willa," he says, hoping to divert her attention, "What's that book you like? With the whatsits?"

" _Hobbits,_ dad!" Willa looks genuinely frustrated--she even puffs out her cheeks--and, goddamn if Tim doesn’t see in her a kindred spirit. Replace _whatsits_ for _midgets,_ _dad_ for _asshole,_ and Tim and Raylan have had that conversation half a dozen times.

Raylan gestures like the term was right on the tip of his tongue. "There you go. Tim loves Hobbits, too."

"I like Bilbo," Willa informs Tim. 

"Yeah, Bilbo's pretty boss." Tim thinks it'd be weird to let a four year old lead him in conversation, but he isn't well-versed on what to say in these situations. It's some stroke of genius, then, that propels him to lean forward and ask, "You ever hear the song?" 

Willa shakes her head so vigorously that her long, loose curls spin. 

"Oh, man!" Tim does his best to come off as genuinely excited for her. Raylan recognizes the tone, and knows if Tim's excited for anything, it's for ruining Raylan's day. "It's a classic. You should learn it with your dad." 

Tim queues up a YouTube video on his phone, then entrusts it to Willa. Her little hands hold each side as she watches, awestruck, as a funny-looking man sings about her hero. There's a hilltop and smiling teenagers in brightly-colored sweaters dancing and singing. It is a _revelation._

She plays it twice before Raylan wrenches the device from her grip and returns the phone to Tim. 

Willa runs off to find an alternative, and it isn't long before the song is again blasting its merry tune throughout the apartment, now from Raylan's tablet, and Willa is singing along. _"Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, the greatest little Hobbit of them all!"_

Raylan draws in a slow breath and exhales, betrayed. "You come into my house..." He notices Willa has left her lunch half-eaten, and calls out to her, "Hun--"

She interrupts, her voice polite but firm, "Daddy, _please._ I am very busy."

Tim’s eyebrows shoot up and he mouths, _"holy shit."_ He’s still grinning when he asks, "Is that all I had to say to get you off my back?"

Raylan is so moony-eyed over his little girl, he almost misses Tim’s joke. He allows, “Well, something to that effect.”

He’s left the ingredients for Willa’s lunch on the counter, so Tim takes up a slice of bread and smears a glob of peanut butter on it. 

Raylan waits until Tim’s chewing to ask, "How are things?" like he thinks it’ll earn him a thoughtful answer. 

Tim speaks through the mouthful, "Oh, without you? Well we try not to fall apart. Rampant gun violence is at an all-time low. Every day is a struggle." He swallows and is quiet, spares a moment to consider if there’s anything in his old life Raylan would truly care to hear about. “Nelson’s still after me to read that book of yours.”

Raylan throws back his head, barks out a laugh. “After four years, you haven’t let him read it?”

Tim supposes it sounds a little ridiculous. He maintains that feature rests solely with Nelson, who continues to politely ask after the book, was it any good, if Tim’s finished it yet? Tim’s read it a couple times and expects he’ll get in a few times more. He’s waiting for Nelson to throw a punch over it, _something._ A little conviction is all Tim wants to see.

With that thought in mind, Tim sets his sights upon Raylan. "How's Ava?"

Raylan doesn't say anything. For a brief moment, he thinks he's misheard Tim completely. Ava's been heavy on his mind since he hoofed it up to California, saw the little life she'd made and resolved to let her keep what it was she treasured most--her freedom, her family. 

His silence lingers, all wrapped up in thoughts that there could be Marshals at Ava's door right now, going head-to-head with her trusty shotgun. He tempers that notion, knows he'd be given word--hell, by _Tim_ of all people--if Ava Crowder was back on Lexington's radar. Raylan's silence is more than speaking for itself, so he forces a shrug and a slow shake of his head.

"Ava who?"

Fuck.

Tim does not need to repeat himself. He does, however, look affronted. "Shit, man. I've known for months. I'm good at my job, remember?"

Raylan sucks his teeth, wishes he’d somehow thought to prepare for this inevitability. He looks sidelong at Tim and asks what he hopes doesn’t need asking. "You didn't say anything?"

His voice voice warm with memory, Tim says, "Was curious what you'd do."

"Rachel clued me in."

"I did not tell Rachel."

"Well shit, Tim," Raylan huffs. "Did you think this information would hatch if you sat on it any goddamn longer?"

Grinning now, Tim says, "I thought you were looking harder!"

Raylan is quiet a moment. He listens for Willa, hears her playing that awful song again in her bedroom. Of Ava, he says, "She's got a kid."

"What is this sickness," Tim waves a hand, breezily indicating all children as some kind of terrible affliction to which otherwise healthy-minded people succumb. 

Raylan finds he can't raise contest to such an assessment. "She's doing alright for herself,” he says of Ava. It’s strange to speak to her condition--alive or otherwise--with anyone, let alone a fellow Deputy Marshal tasked with bringing her in. Raylan even finds himself pulling the same stunts as Ava--painting her situation in pastels, watering down the part about her being a fugitive from the law. “Living quietly. Scared out of her wits Boyd'll find her."

"Uh-huh. So what'd you tell him when you visited last month?" Tim’s not going to pretend it took any sleuthing to know Raylan visited Boyd in prison: "We get a visitor’s log." 

Raylan nods, and is careful in the answer he gives because it’s still Ava he’s got to protect. "I showed him some bullshit death certificate. Laid it on a little thick." 

He glances again at Willa’s bedroom door, worried like she’ll hear murmurs of her father’s ill deeds. She sees him as a hero, draws pictures of him with that great star on his belt like he’s fucking Captain America. Raylan’s a little daunted by those images, truth be told. He puts them well below eye-level on his fridge, Willa’s countless scribbled frogs taking places of higher honor. 

"I told Rachel I checked it out, and if it was her she'd moved on. And I told Ava I wouldn't come after her." 

Raylan says that last piece different from the rest; he’s not building a case for Tim anymore, he’s telling him the facts. 

Tim takes offense in Raylan’s place, asks coolly, "You do remember she stole your car, left you bleeding on the side of the road."

"I do remember she's done that to quite a few of the men in her life." 

Tim looks down at the remains of his sandwich and sighs. "Well, so long as we're all clear in being complicit."

It’s the kind of thing Raylan wants to toast to, but he notes the soda Tim’s nursing and has to curtail his instincts. He invites Tim to poke around, check out the view. Raylan’s apartment isn’t much to look out from the street--just part of another looming condominium crowding the skyline--but it’s backed against a spread of beach, and Tim can appreciate that. Raylan’s got a sliding glass door open to a little balcony space, and although the ocean is a ways away, its powerful scent comes right up to the balcony and spills in. Contrary to Tim’s presumption, it doesn’t feel like being backed into a corner; it feels like all of life’s possibilities are spread wide and inviting. 

“How are you?” Raylan says, because if he’s already asked, he’s certain he hasn’t heard an answer yet.

Tim sticks to his guns and doesn’t quite give him one. “Dreading this wedding.”

“Open bar?" Raylan guesses. He’s being cute about it, and Tim doesn’t answer him. "So cut out early. Plenty else to do in Miami." They both know he’s wrong, there, so Raylan asks again: "Something happen?"

Tim steps back from the balcony and gives Raylan a tight smile. "Not that I can remember." 

In that small admission, coupled with Tim’s hesitance to share it, he somehow says more about himself than Raylan heard in the entire two years they were partnered in Lexington. There’s more shame knitted to one seemingly impossible, unaccessible night than Tim can even speak to. 

Raylan knows his own share of life-altering mistakes. He can sympathize, though he expects Tim would prefer literally _anything else._ “Well, if anything comes back to ya, you know I can’t spill a word.” 

Tim smirks at that. Raylan’s kidding himself if he thinks Tim’s going to let his Ava Crowder trump card go for anything less than some spectacular favor. Admittedly, he may already have something. 

"Unrelated--I got a call from Glynco," he sets his gaze on Raylan, expectant. "Seems they're looking for a new firearms instructor, and someone put up my name." 

"Not as a joke," Raylan defends. There's no sense in lying about it, now. “Their guy’s retiring and I told ‘em there was a sharpshooter up in Lexington worth looking into.”

Raylan’s not expecting Tim’s undying gratitude, but the profound eye-rolling is a surprise.

"Well, they ain't accepting diplomas from the school of hard knocks." Tim figured that much when he filled out the application on a lark, and was left with a mess of blank spaces between his completion of high school, and _other_ \--sniper school, his Army accreditations, and Ranger status.

"Experience," Raylan covers easily, "Is what they ought to be teaching from." 

"You swung that gig for a while," Tim says, not so embarrassed because despite a lack of checklist credentials, he's still in the running. "Guess it can't be too hard." 

"That's the spirit," Raylan smirks, but he doesn't think he has Tim convinced of anything, yet. "It's a change of pace," he admits. "I took the position after a heavy stint in Texas, used the time to get my head on straight, figure out if I wanted something like a life, a family... Or if I wanted to keep in this business. Turns out I did." 

He means to sell it but he thinks he's off to a bad start, already. Tim doesn't look too swayed by the opportunity to reflect on his life choices--especially if he intends to do so sober. Raylan wants to tell him it'd be good for him, but Tim's got this quiet little smile on his face that says he sees what Raylan has coming for him, and it's laughable. 

"I strike you as the introspective type?" Tim's teasing him, but Raylan does him one better and commits.

"In this line of work," he says, "It's probably better if we ain't." If Tim wants the cold, hard truth, he can have it.

Raylan thinks if he had a taste of the bourbon Tim brought, this'd all go down a little smoother. He doesn't doubt that same thought is running circles in Tim's head, though. That Tim's sobriety should enforce his own makes Raylan think that not only does Tim need this, he _deserves_ it. A man who could give up drinking in bourbon's own backyard is destined for bigger things than running down hillbillies in coal country. Raylan gives it his last, best effort: "I mean, _shit._ It's _fun._ You get to shoot guns all day and make life miserable for all the assholes thinking what we do ain't nothing but a weekend course."

"Hey, I was one of those assholes."

Raylan doesn’t doubt that for a second. "And how much fun did your instructor have shitting on you?"

"...You make a strong point."

"You ought to go for it. Really." Raylan finds he can sound sincere without even trying. It seems to impress them both. "Or look my gift horse in the mouth, whichever." 

Tim shakes his head, refusing to believe Raylan’s gifted him anything beyond innumerable stress headaches and maybe an ulcer. “I’ve got the interview in May.”

Raylan tips forward and claps Tim on the arm. "Hey, better yet, we'd practically be neighbors."

"Well now you're just sending mixed messages."

A knock at the door brings both the return of Tim’s luggage, and the promise of his departure. 

“Thank Christ,” Tim mutters. “I thought we were about to hug.” 

He signs for the bag and ensures the WWII relic has remained intact. Because he's taken up Raylan's time, Tim feels compelled to show what it was worth.

Raylan whistles, seeing the piece. It's some ancient technology shoehorned into a familiar shape. It somehow looks deadly and _completely ineffective_ all at once. Probably, Raylan thinks, because whoever owned it before Tim has long since passed. 

"It was his grandfather's," Tim explains. 

"He a good friend, then?" Raylan can only guess as to the time and money Tim's spent tracking it down. 

He was the helo pilot who braved incoming mortar fire to pull Tim and Mark out of a tough spot. They spent the next night in a club in Kandahar, singing shitty karaoke and getting fucked up and trying not to think about how close they'd all been to death. 

Beyond that, Tim only knows Chuy distantly, has seen him once since Afghanistan and traded a handful of emails. But with the tremendous find he’s got in his hands, Tim can’t very well say _that._ Can't cop to the fact that even the invitation to Chuy’s wedding was a surprise, either. Can't admit that he didn't even know the man's full name until he started looking for this small piece of his family's history. 

He takes his time packing the weapon back up, then tells Raylan simply, "I tend not to make a bunch of shitty ones, no." 

"Well I'll take that as a compliment, then." 

They trade the usual half-hearted pleasantries. Raylan says to look him up next time he’s in town longer than a day. Tim lies, says he will. 

“You ought to let Nelson read the book.” Raylan’s comment stalls Tim at the door. He turns back around, gets a load of Raylan standing ahead a sea of his daughter’s Legos and two half-eaten sandwiches. He’s still wearing the cowboy boots and a ridiculous hat, but it’s not some shitty hotel or bar he’s holed up in, and Tim thinks that must make all the difference.

“He’s going to cream himself when I tell him you said that.” 

Raylan grins and shakes his head, but doesn’t tell Tim he’s wrong. "You let me how the interview goes." 

"You find out before I do, you let _me_ know.” 

"Hell, I'll send for the U-Haul," Raylan promises. 

Tim dismisses the guarantee as laden with patented _Raylan Givens_ levels of overconfidence, an absurdist flight of fancy and nothing more. But six weeks later, Raylan does just that.


End file.
